Despite the popular belief of too many people from my childhood, I am indeed BLACK. 80 percent black, to be clear. What I’ve always wanted to know is what part of Africa I’m from, and as it turns out, I’m from several different parts of Africa!

I already gave a hint at some of my heritage on Twitter the Sunday I got my results:

After I have this information, I now feel like a more secure person; I’ve always wanted to know what ethnicities made me me, and now I know. Here are four things I’ve learned from this experience.

1. America has a limited view of what blackness entails:

As I’ve said many times before, one of the things that irritated me the most about my childhood were individuals believing that I was more than just black because of how I looked. What people failed to realize is that blackness isn’t just one look; blackness encompasses a myriad of looks.

There’s even more looks than just what’s featured here. In short, instead of some of us limiting what blackness “should” look like, let’s accept the wide array of blackness as a whole. We say blackness isn’t a monolith, but some of us have got to truly believe that.

I do have to say, though, that it is a very rewarding feeling to know exactly what parts of Africa I’m from. The pain of being African-American is having your ancestry essentially robbed from you through slavery. Whereas others know exactly what part or parts they come from (or at least have a idea of where they come from), many African Americans don’t know anything about our pasts. This journey with AncestryDNA is the start of me knowing exactly where I come from, and that knowledge–the knowledge that was taken from us to dehumanize us–is something we should all have. We as a people aren’t just a group of people without a past; we do have a past, and I think it is important to learn about it (especially if you’ve always been interested in ethnic studies) because through that knowledge, I feel we can better honor our ancestors and, in some ways, ourselves.

The Native American ancestor is a big deal in black American households. It was a part of my childhood, too; supposedly, my paternal great-great-grandfather (my great grandmother’s father) was supposedly a Native American. I was told it with such conviction and with such clarity from relatives that I was like, “Well, it must be true; why would they make that up?” However, I never really discussed it with anyone except on the rare occasion, since I later came to the fact that this just might not be true, particularly thanks to the wisdom of my mother, who said in so many words, “You’d probably need to check that to see if it’s true.”

Learning about how rampant the Native American ancestor myth was in black households also made me doubt my great-great grandfather’s heritage. Granted, there are black Native Americans, but if you’re a black Native American, you probably have concrete records showing such. My family, like many families, have none, except for what we’ve been told by other relatives who swear we’re related to Pocahontas or some Native American chief (my great-great grandfather wasn’t labeled to me as anything but Cherokee, so the fact that he was just some dude made me think that the story of his heritage could actually have been true).

Now that I know the actual percentage of my Native American ancestry, I could say, technically, that I have 2 percent Native heritage. But what does that even mean? How could I even claim such when it’s already part of my “trace regions” ancestry? The truth of it is is that my Native American ancestry has been greatly reduced over time, to the point where I virtually don’t have any Native ancestry, which is in line with how I’ve always lived anyways. Also truth: my great-great grandfather was probably just black, since it’s mathematically impossible for me to be just 2 percent Native and my great-great grandfather to be 100 percent Cherokee.

3. The effects of the Slave Trade are, thankfully, not as large as I expected, but still in effect:

The amounts of Iberian and Ireland ancestry I have, as well as the amounts of Middle Eastern ancestry I have, could be more than likely attributed to the slave trade and/or migration. I’m surprised that there weren’t larger amounts of what I expected, which was a larger amount of British or Irish heritage. I’m guessing that’s because of one or two things (or both): 1) like with the Native ancestry (probably), my African ancestry has been reinforced over centuries through marriages and couplings in general, dulling down the other strains of DNA I have and 2) perhaps my ancestors’ journey to America is a lot more of a winding road than I expected.

I believed that I’d find a large percentage of European ancestry because my ancestors, like a lot of ancestors, were brought over the Middle Passage. Or so I believe. They still could have taken that route, but perhaps the low amount of European ancestry I have means something less straightforward happened in ancestors’ past. Basically, whereas many black people are shocked to find European ancestry, I’m shocked to find so little, and I’d like to know the story behind these percentages.

However, it still is interesting to see the echoes of those ancestries still kicking around in my bloodstream. If I decided to go deeper into my ancestry (which I just might, since I still want to have my own Roots moment), I’m sure I’ll find ancestors I’ll be deeply, deeply disappointed with. I’m sure I’ll find ancestors who have been violently misused by some of my other ancestors. But still, it’s fascinating to see just how far around the world my ancestry goes.

4. Where’d the Asian and Scandinavian heritage come from?

The only question marks I have are where the Asian and Scandinavian heritage stem from. I’m intrigued by this. Again, the percentages of these aren’t enough for me to claim them outright, but I’d really like to know who from Scandinavia and Eastern and Central Asia contributed to the person you see today.

Final thoughts

This journey is just the beginning, however this chapter has come to a close (doing this ancestry work takes money after all, and the next step is going to take even more money than just this DNA test). I’ve been shocked my results, and at the same time I’m pleasantly surprised. I’m proud to know that I come from so many African nations, and I’m fascinated by the other aspects of my ancestry that I have yet to explore. Overall, it is neat to be a person of the world.

(Another startling thing: Ancestry shows you individuals who are the best matches at being your 4th cousins or closer. The service shows you at least through your 8th cousins matches. I haven’t contacted anybody yet mostly because it’s startling to see people you don’t even know listed as your possible family members. I’m still processing that bit of information right now, so if you’re reading this and I’m one of your cousin matches on Ancestry.com, feel free to reach out to me, since it’s taking me a while to process a lot of this.)

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